I dont think i need spoilers tags since pretty much by now everybody knows what happen.
Damian
Wayne, the 5th Robin was killed today in Batman Inc #8 and i have
already talk a lot about what i think of Death in comics in another
blogpost but my thoughts on this matter are slightly different here.
I
dont think this death is because of shock value or something similar
but is simply a death that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not just
because im a fan of the character but because i feel that this is an
step backwards in many ways.
THE NEW(?) 52!, What about the NEW Batman?
Before
the new 52 was implemented i was actually really enthusiastic about it,
I felt that it was an opportunity for DC to clean is continuity and
open new possibilities while allowing the old things to work in a
different way, Now i think very different about it specially when
talking about Batman here.
Whatever you like it or not Morrison
changed Batman, and he changed the way people see Batman, not only
readers but writers too and the way he did that was by simply evolving
the concept, taking it into its next step.
Many remember that Morrison's first arc was Batman & Son, what not many seems to recall is the title of thee first chp
Building a Better Batmovile
That right there is the core concept of Morrison's entire run,
Building something better,
and to do that he used all the parts that he could, this is why he tap
into those old stories of the silver age, he created a new level by
simply supporting himself into those old forgotten parts of his own
history, thats how he build a new batmovile and therefore a new Batman.
The
death and return of Batman, the new son, the new Batman and Robin, The
new Batgirl and Oracle, the new Outsiders, The new Batmovile, the New
Villains, a New Purpose.
Those things were genuinely
NEW.
The idea of "new" implies that there was something old
Those
were the next evolution of Batman and that was suppose to be the new
Status Quo. and here is the thing about evolution, it goes up as an
spiral.
However DC got rid of that in the name of
NEW, all in the name of "progress" we got back to the same old status quo
The new Batman is just the same Old one in a new package, and Dick Grayson can no longer don a cowl and the Batmovil cannot fly.
and now Batman no longer has a son.
so
at the end of the day when the last page of Morrison's run had been
turn and if Robin is still dead, if Dick is Nightwing and the Batmovile
is still the same, what did we accomplished, where is that next level on
top of it?
If the only accomplishment of this journey was the sole journey of it then you might as well not have read it.
so
go tell the future writers to just ignore it because there is nothing
NEW coming from this, that there is no evolusion and we wont move the
spiral anymore but will keep going in an never ending cycle.
the Morrison run has officially become old and obsolete and the
"NEW" is just something even older and even more obsolete.
JUST 5 YEARS?
Suffocating, there is no other word to describe what the 5 year timeline means to Batman.
Its constraining, Its limiting, its cutting his oxigen and stealing his life out it and the reason is simple to understand.
Morrison
made Batman progress not despite of his continuity but BECAUSE of it,
all those experiences, all those years cant be compress into 5 years,
its taking away what make it advance.
Its basically like removing the engine of a car with the idea that it will go faster cause the car is lighter.
This
has been a huge problem with Damian Wayne, simply enough because he is
10 years old and even the most moderated calculus put only 7 years in
the continuity of Batman, but thats in general since In Batman &
Robin 0 he had a total of 5 birthdays 1 year and a half before Batman
and son which means that he grew in real time, of course it doesnt help
that writers just deal with this problem by ignoring the issue entirely.
How old are you again?
It almost seems like Damian just doesnt fit into this
NEW 52 continuity
Robin is dead, All Hail the new Robin!
It
just amazes me that the second that it was hinted of the possibility of
Damian dieing a ton of people start speculating about who or when would
a new Robin, i guess thats the fan mentality and even i would lie if i
dont admit that I did contemplated the possibilities.
Some people say Its going to be Harper Row, becoming the 5 robin in continuity and the 3rd girl wonder
other say a big return to either Cass Cain or Stephanie Brown would be well received too.
But what people doesnt seem to think about is what does to have a new robin?
What does it mean to Batman and what does it mean to Damian.
does
having a new robin so soon implies that Damian's return will be much
later than sooner and if it is sooner what happens if he returns and
finds himself replaced already.
would he take on a different name then or would we have 2 robins?
What does this means to the fans who still want to read about Damian?
What exactly is this "Death" you talk about?
Faces of Evil: Ra's al Ghul
There
is a huge difference between the death of Jason Todd and the death of
Damian and that is that Jason just wasnt popular when he died so not
many people missed him and the impact of his dead was actually bigger
than the impact that he made in life. still Jason returned to life and
his return brought a lot of other interesting elements.
But with
Damian and in the current state of comics, its practically impossible to
thing that he will stay dead for 15 years much less a full year
Even though Morrison thought on killing him on his first appearance, he didnt, he survived and he became popular
there is the Lazarus Pit, thats how Jason return officially
maybe he will get revived by the white lantern
or some supernatural
some people even say he will sell his soul to the devil to return like it was hinted in Batman 666
and some even say that he will be back before the end of Batman Inc.
so at the end of the day, What is this death about?
THE PROBLEM
so there are 2 possibilities and only 2
- Either Damian comes back to life soon
- or he doesnt come back soon
And even though this will be my humble opinion, BOTH CHOICES SUCK
you
will notice that i dont include "he wont come back ever" because its
just not a realistic choice, maybe in 10 or 20 or 50 years someone
somewhere will try this character again.
so the manner in question is simply When will he back
and he can come back sooner or later
Either
way, he is just not going to be here for some time, writers wont be
able to write his stories anymore and for a long time and that is
exactly why this is such a terrible thing.
whatever if it is a 1 year or 20 years its still and step backwards, its making the world that Morrison created much smaller.
Im
not discrediting writers like Snyder, Layman, Tomasi or Hurwitz by
thinking they cant create a new world for Batman like Morrison did, and
in some cases Snyder has created some genuinely new interesting concepts
too.
what im questioning is the sole idea of making something new and forget completely about what made the old one good.
I
read comics because i want to see what happens next, what will be the
next step, the next adventure and how will the story progress and thanks
to the to the new 52 and the lost of Morrison's concepts i feel that we
are not progressing and its because we are not, we are not moving forward.
I
dont want an story where Batman deals with the dead of a robin cause we
already had that, or where he gets a new robin who is a girl or not
because robin left/died, already cover.
We are moving Backwards.
and DC thinks that is something New, just because we are seeing the same
scenery from another point of view.
Where did all that progress go?
